


Recovering from Something

by orphan_account



Series: Inclinations [3]
Category: due South
Genre: Asexuality, Gen, POV Outsider, Pining, Sobriety, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-25
Updated: 2012-01-25
Packaged: 2017-10-30 02:36:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/326829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Related to "A Question of Inclination."  One of Ray's blind dates tells her story, and changes the names to protect the innocent.  And fragile.</p><p>There is another canonical "due South" character whom you may chose to recognize or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recovering from Something

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Luzula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luzula/gifts).



> Dedicated to Luzula, whom I don't really know at all. I have no idea if this even the kind of story Luzula would like. But Luzula left the prompt that started this series, and has been extremely kind and helpful to a writer new to "due South," so here it is.

Hi, I’m Kim, and I’m an alcoholic.  Sobriety…it’s hard.  Obviously.  The sheer numbers on backsliding in AA are terrifying.  But if you fall off the wagon, you can always get back on again.  And again.  And again.  And maybe one day, you’ll manage to find some kind of seat belt and that will, metaphorically, help you stay on the wagon for good.

Well, that analogy got away from me.  The story of how I became (or, really, _realized_ I was) an alcoholic, and what my personal rock bottom was, that’s not really what I want to talk about.  I want to talk about the first date I went on after I started twelve-stepping.  Oh, stop rolling your eyes.  I know all about the no sex, no new relationships rule.  But my family, well, I love them but they’ve never really been able to put the “fun” in “dysfunctional.”  So I wasn’t ready to talk to them about what I was trying to do.  They really wanted me to go on a date with someone my dad’s second cousin twice removed or whatever worked with.  So I thought, “Hey, I can do this, it’s not like some divorced cop in his forties is going to be astonished when I turn him down.  And it’s good practice for when I really will be ready to date.”

Okay, you guys, laughing is just not cool!  Oh, I’m kidding.  I know sympathetic laughter when I hear it.  We’ve all been over-confident in the early days.  But this story is about something that ended up being really positive for me.

His name was…well, I’m gonna call him Ben.  He was good looking in a sort of strange way.  Skinny as a rail, hair sort of blond, sort of light brown.  Gorgeous eyes.  Kind of an annoying voice, no ass to speak of, but even by then I knew better than to chase perfection; that was part of what got me into this program in the first place.

I ordered a ginger ale, and he had the same.  Then he said, “Look, Kim, you’re really pretty and you seem real nice, but I’m in love with someone else.  That is not gonna change, so if you want to have a nice date with an okay guy, I’m your man.  If you want something more than that, please feel free to leave and I’m sorry if I wasted your evening.”

“Oh, thank God,” I blurted out before I could stop myself.  That turned out to be a real ice-breaker for some reason.  I found myself telling him that I really did want a nice night out with an okay guy, but that my sobriety was newfound and fragile.  We talked about that for awhile, and then I asked him why he was going on blind dates if he was already in love.

“It’s…okay, well, I’m in love with another man,” he told me.

“So, I’m like your, what, rent-a-beard?”  I didn’t say it or mean it unkindly, and he seemed to understand my intent.  Bantering while sober is not an easily acquired skill.

“Nah,” he said easily enough.  “I’m actually, you know, I like men, I like women, but I love Ray.”  Well, Ray wasn’t really the name he told me, but what does that second “A” stand for again?

“And Ray is…?”

“He’s someone I work with.  And we’re roommates.”

“So, is he like straight or something?”

Ben sighed and suddenly looked very, very tired.  “No.  He’s not anything.”

“Not anything?”

“He just doesn’t…he doesn’t get sex.  Understand it.  He doesn’t….”  Ben waved his hands around in frustration.

“So, like a priest or something?”

Ben shook his head, trying to convey something he didn’t quite have words for.  “No, ‘cause when a priest doesn’t have sex, it’s a sacrifice, right?  They’re giving it up for God, and it’s supposed to be like a test or something.  Personally, I think it’s kind of a stupid test, but if Ray gave up sex…well, it would be like if I gave up cocaine or something.  ‘Cause I’ve never done coke, never wanted to, so going without is no hardship.”

“So he never….”

“There was this one woman.  But she manipulated the hell out of him, and he was at about the age when people are supposed to fall in love, so he did.  Because it was expected.  It ended up real bad and real short.  Twice.”

“Wow.”  I had no idea what that would be like.  The word “asexual” didn’t even occur to me, because I’d never it heard outside of biology classes about how sponges reproduce.

“So that’s my sad bastard story,” Ben said apologetically.

“Hey, it’s a new one on me,” I said.  “But, hey, maybe he’ll wake up one day a changed man.”

Ben shook his head.  “Nope.  It’s like being gay, or being bi.  It’s just who he is.”

“So not being interested in sex is in itself a sexual orientation?”  I was probably being insensitive, but the whole situation struck me as so curious, so out of my own experience, that I was sitting in a restaurant, people drinking and laughing all around me, and it suddenly struck me that if I had a choice between having a one-drink free pass or listening to Ben’s story, I’d take listening to Ben’s story.

“I guess.”

“Does he….”

“Yeah.  God, you know he actually offered something to me once.”

“Offered you something?”

“Some kind of…I don’t know, don’t even want to know.  He felt so sorry for me that he was going to, I guess, do me some kind of _favor_.”  And the way his mouth twisted around that word told me that of course Ben didn’t take Ray up on his offer.

“Wow,” I said again.  I like to go with the classics.  “It’s…like, you want something, even though you know it’s bad for you, you still crave it.”

He shook his head.  “I wouldn’t compare being in love with Ray to an addiction.  That would be unfair to both people with genuine addictions and to him.  He really is a great guy, he wears like three shirts just in case he runs into three people who might need them.”

I laughed, but Ben looked serious.  Like maybe Ray really was some kind of perfect guy with this one tiny flaw, that he could look at a good-looking guy like Ben, who, even sitting down, moved with an unconscious grace, and not even think once that maybe this was a guy worth exploring with.

I know that Ben was talking about some kind of idealized image in his head, a Ray who was smart, kind, handsome, helpful, maybe could go into a Persian restaurant and just order in Farsi or whatever.  But even if the real Ray was just a fraction of Ben’s fantasy Ray, he was still a dream guy.

Anyway, I’ve really veered off-topic here.  I just wanted to say, that was me, three weeks sober, and my first date that didn’t involve booze.  It was an odd date, but probably the best date ever.  And I say this now, five years sober, and married to a sweet guy with whom I had an absolutely dreadful first date, at this God-awful comedy club he and some friend of his own, it really was terrible, and I got into this huge argument with him about how it really was unfair to have a two-drink minimum because I’m willing to pay five bucks for a club soda, but really those jokes were only funny to the impaired, and really why the hell did he smell like fish?

It was not my finest moment, but it was a sober moment, an honest moment, and he started working on his material and went to the doctor and now he really is funny and no longer smells like fish.  But we love each other, and sometimes when I feel like making love and he doesn’t, or the other way around, I think about Ben and my heart breaks a little, because that’s his life, every night.

Thank you for listening.


End file.
